1965: An astronaut in space holds a conversation with an aquanaut underwater, marking another milestone in human communication. Astronaut Gordon Cooper, orbiting the Earth with Pete Conrad in Gemini 5, hooked up by radiotelephone with an old pal, astronaut-turned-aquanaut Scott Carpenter, who was living and working 205 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean […]

All posts tagged ‘space shuttles’

1965: An astronaut in space holds a conversation with an aquanaut underwater, marking another milestone in human communication. Astronaut Gordon Cooper, orbiting the Earth with Pete Conrad in Gemini 5, hooked up by radiotelephone with an old pal, astronaut-turned-aquanaut Scott Carpenter, who was living and working 205 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean […]

1984: Shuttle astronauts retrieve the malfunctioning Solar Max astronomy satellite, fix it and send it back into orbit. It’s the first time a satellite has been repaired in space. The Solar Maximum mission had been launched Feb. 14, 1980. But it was having trouble with its altitude-control system, and the electronics in the coronagraph instrument […]

1972: President Richard M. Nixon announces that NASA will develop a space shuttle system, touting its reliability, reusability and low cost. See Also: Photo GalleryNASA: 50 Years of Towering Achievement The Mercury and Gemini programs had put Americans into Earth orbit. Apollo had been to the moon seven times — landing four times — and […]

1990: The Hubble Space Telescope sends its first image back to Earth. The new telescope’s imaging prowess clearly exceeded that of the best ground-based telescopes, as shown in the image above of stars in the Carina cluster. But after a few weeks, scientists began to realize something was amiss. Hubble’s images weren’t as sharp as […]